D Gukesh looks forward to facing members of his World Championship team in Tata Steel Chess

Dommaraju Gukesh is currently on a break after his historic triumph in the FIDE World Championship in Singapore, where he defeated China’s Ding Liren to become the youngest world champion in the history of the sport and only the second from India. The 18-year-old having opted to skip the World Rapid and Blitz Championships in New York where Grandmaster Koneru Humpy won the Women’s Rapid title for the second time in her career, instead choosing to rest on his laurels for a bit after receiving a heroic welcome in his hometown of Chennai.

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Gukesh, who is set to reign as the world champion for two years, will next be in action at the Tata Steel Chess Classical Tournament in Wijk aan Zee in Netherlands that gets underway on 17 January. What makes this tournament event more interesting for the Chennai lad is the fact that he will be squaring off against two individuals who were part of his team for the World Championship in Singapore – Vincent Keymer and Pentala Harikrishna.

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Gukesh, however, said that the camaraderie with Keymer and Harikrishna as well as other players will disappear over the chess board once the tournament gets underway.

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“Tata Steel is a very important tournament in the chess calendar that I always look forward to, and as usual I will try to be at my best and give my full effort," Gukesh told Sporstar.

“Every player is super strong in the field and will be competitive and most of them are good friends off the board. But over the board they are all my rivals and the same applies to Vincent and Hari. We will fight hard on board and have fun off it!” he added.

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The Tata Steel Chess Tournament is one of the oldest and most important tournaments in chess, having existed for nearly century. The tournament first took place in 1938 as the Hoogovens Tournament named after Dutch steel producer Koninklijke Hoogovens. It was renamed ‘Corus Chess Tournament’ in 1999 after Hoogovens’ merger with British Steel to form the Corus Group.

The present name ‘Tata Steel Chess Tournament’ came into existence in 2007 after Corus was renamed Tata Steel Europe after being acquired by Indian conglomerate Tata.

Gukesh had finished runner-up in last year’s edition after losing to China’s Wei Yi in the tie-breaks, while compatriots Vidit Gujrathi and R Praggnanandhaa had finished sixth and seventh respectively.